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Pheasants from India, quails from Africa, tinamous from South 

 America, lapwings and grouse from Europe, and other species 

 have appeared in numbers in the principal markets of the 

 world, and to-day some species of pheasants are almost ex- 

 tirpated from their native land. If the sale of foreign game 

 continues many species may become extinct. 



Eggs of Sea Birds as Food. 



Water birds, such as auks, murres, pelicans, gulls, terns, 

 ducks and herons, breed in communities on islands in lakes or 

 along the coasts of all the continents. For centuries it has been 

 the common custom for men to visit these colonies at the be- 

 ginning of the nesting season, break all the eggs to insure a 

 supply of fresh ones, and then about every alternate day to 

 gather all the new-laid eggs for food. As market demands grew 

 apace, this egg gathering became a regular business. On the 

 Atlantic coast of North America, during the latter part of the 

 last century, all eggs from an inch in diameter upward, from 

 Labrador to Texas, were taken and sold to consumers or in 

 public markets. When settlement reached the coast of the 

 Pacific the eggs of sea birds which formerly had been taken in 

 some numbers by the Indians were exploited by the whites. 

 Some idea of the enormous numbers of eggs gathered may be 

 gained from the statement of H. W. Elliot, that when he first 

 visited Walrus Island in Behring Sea in July, 1872, six men in 

 less than three hours loaded to the water's edge with murres' 

 eggs a small vessel of 4 tons' capacity. Egging was carried on 

 as a business for nearly fifty years in the Farrallone Islands 

 off the coast of California. Myriads of sea birds, chiefly gulls 

 and murres or California guillemots bred on these islands. The 

 eggs were collected and sold in the markets of San Francisco at 

 from 12 to 20 cents a dozen during a season of about two 

 months. It is said that between 1850 and 1856 three to four 

 million eggs were marketed from these islands. On Laysan 

 Island, one of the Hawaiian group, the eggs of thousands of 

 albatrosses nesting there were collected and loaded on the cars 

 of a narrow-gauge railway and eaten by laborers engaged in 

 shipping guano from the island. It was customary in most 



